Indestructibles Part Two: Narrowing Down What's Best for Your Baby

 

In my previous post on the Indestructibles series, I mentioned that there was quite a lot of variety in the collection (with 38 English titles to select from).  If you'd like to pick up one or two for your little but aren't sure which ones are the best fit, it's my hope that this post will guide you in the right direction.

I've got a peek inside several more as well as a summary of the different styles.

Home Sweet Home takes readers room by room, sharing what happens in each and labeling the important items found throughout.  I love how much discussion can happen with this one because it's so relatable! The text has an easy-to-follow, repetitive structure.  You could easily begin the sentence and have your child finish it for you as they get older.  "We play in the _____!  We sleep in the _____!"  This is a great one for multi-child households as the labels are great for younger children and the sentences are better for slightly older ones.

Things That Go teaches children about different modes of transportation, by land, air and sea.  Just as we saw in Home Sweet Home, labels and sentences are present and the text follows a simple pattern.  Kids will love learning about all the different vehicles, planes, boats and more!

Baby, Let's Eat categorizes foods by color and dedicates a full spread to each.  This is a really great choice for littles starting out with solids as you can talk about which ones they've already tried!  

Love You, Baby is a fun read, mostly because you can act out all the different ways to love a baby that are portayed!  It's essentially just a list of things you can do to show baby you love him/her.  

Baby Faces shows littles different facial expressions and helps prompt discussion about emotions.  I love that the faces take up the majority of the page, and littles love it because they enjoy seeing facial features.  My only complaint here is that I wish instead of words like "hurray," "boo-hoo," and "yucky," we saw labels of feelings, like "happy," "sad," "disgusted." 

Let's Be Kind teaches children about manners.  Children will see sharing, the use of "please" and "thank you," helping, and other ways to be polite.  I love how this teaches important skills and includes great phrases for kids to learn.

Hickory Dickory Dock is a wordless representation of the classic nursery rhyme, with the mouse climbing up London's Big Ben!  I was disappointed to see that the words weren't printed on each page, as nursery rhymes are easily one of the first texts kiddos can point to as they say the words aloud.  Without them printed, it's hard to have this grow with readers, but this is a great visual for young babies with the high-contrast colors.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is exactly what you'd expect: an illustrated version of the classic rhyme.  Kids will love seeing the poem come to life as they turn each page and will enjoy reading along!

Busy City teaches about all the sights and sounds in the city.  I love that there's so much onomatopoeia throughout the text, like "weeee oooh" by the police car and "woppa woppa" by the helicopter!  Obviously a perfect choice for anyone living in the city!

My Neighborhood highlights all of the important community helpers seen throughout the neighborhood.   I love the diverse representation in the illustrations (a resident wearing hijab and a Black female police officer, to name a few).

Mama and Baby is a wordless book with beautiful illustrations of mother/child animal relationships.   If you love the art but don't like that it's wordless, keep in mind that as your child grows, you can ask him/her to add labels or sentences with post-its!

Wiggle! March! is another wordless book showing images of animals you'd see on the farm.  As you "read" this one, you may choose to go through and say just the animal names aloud.  You may just make the different animal sounds.  Again, if you don't prefer wordless books but enjoy the pictures, you can add words to the book with post-its.  

Author: Jonas Sickler 

Category: Wordless Nursery Rhymes

Best Feature: Illustrations promote worldly culture

Best Age: 0-2 years 

Author: Kaaren Pixton 

Category: Wordless Animal Books

Best Feature: Gorgeous illustrations

Best Age: 0-1 year 

Author: Kate Merritt 

Category: Babies

Best Feature: Focus on faces, which babies enjoy

Best Age: 0-1 year

Author: Stephan Lomp

Category: Patterned Text/Picture Dictionary

Best Feature: increasing vocabulary

Best Age: 0-4 years

Author: Maddie Frost

Category: Illustrated Nursery Rhyme, Patterned Text/Picture Dictionary

Best Feature: illustrations, increasing vocabulary

Best Age: 0-4 years

Author: Ekaterina Trukhan

Category: Story

Best Feature: illustrations, educational

Best Age: 0-4 years

Author: Carolina Buzio

Category: Story

Best Feature: illustrations, educational

Best Age: 0-4 years

Top 5 Titles: 

5. Hello, Farm by Maddie Frost

4. Big and Little, A Book of Opposites by Carolina Buzio

3. Baby, See the Colors! by Ekaterina Trukhan

2. Busy City by Maddie Frost

1. Home Sweet Home by Stephan Lomp

Hopefully this helped narrow it down for you!  Note that I only included ones that I feel really grow with the child (0-4 years) in the Top 5, because I prefer ones that you can keep using as littles grow and learn.

Indestructibles

 

If you have an infant at home, you know that reading to them can be a challenge. As our babes go through teething, exploring things by mouthing, and haphazardly grabbing and crinkling anything they can get their hands on, it's a wonder that our littlest readers get read to at all!

That being said, y'all know we read lots over here. We have paperback books, board books, cloth books, bath books, hardcover books... And Mackenzie wants them all. She wants to feel (destroy?) the pages and sink her tiny two teeth into all of them. I just remind her we don't do that, or keep her seated far enough away that she can't do that, but sometimes I want to just let her explore a book on her own!

The board books were fine until she got those teeth (that, albeit cute, I like to refer to as 'rodent teeth,' because she has chewed CHUNKS of cardboard off of her books). And while cloth and bath books may hold up to mouthing, they don't tend to have much of a storyline.

Enter INDESTRUCTIBLES! Invented by a mother of triplets, these books are "chew-proof, rip-proof, and drool-proof, they’re printed on a unique 100% nontoxic, paperlike material that holds up to anything babies can throw at it—gumming, spilling, dragging across the floor. And if they get dirty, just wash them off."

But more than that, they are STUNNING books. Beautiful illustrations accompany stories that teach shapes, colors, opposites and counting. Options include wordless look books, nursery rhymes, picture dictionaries, and simple stories.

Granted, these are marketed for babies, but I can guarantee these would be great for toddlers all the way through five-year-olds who have difficulty taking care of their materials. Instead of banning children from getting library books for consistently ripping them, chewing them, or spilling sticky juice all over them, they could rely on Indestructibles as they learned responsibility.

Another thing I love about them is how thin and portable these are! You can fit a whole little library in your purse for a day trip!

Let's take a more in-depth look at the variety offered in Indestructible stories.

Hello, Farm! by Maddie Frost offers a repetitive text format with a beautiful farm setting.  Children will get used to the pattern of saying "Hello!" to each animal.  This one is great for trying to get young readers to repeat after you and say what they see in the pictures.  What a perfect fall choice before you head to the farm to get a pumpkin!

Baby Babble by Kate Merrit is a first picture dictionary for littles.  Each spread features a variety of pictures with labels next to each.  This one is a good choice for teaching children concept of word, or the understanding that every word said aloud matches a word in print, as well as increasing vocabulary.  (Personally, though, I feel you could increase vocabulary in any book if you point and say what you see.  The biggest benefit to this one is the concept of word instructional capability.) Kids often enjoy illustrations like those offered here! 

Let's Go Outside! By Ekaterina Trukhan is a wonderful text for teaching littles to make connections!  Most kids love being outside and have experience walking in the park or playing in the water.  These pictures practically beg kids to get out and do the things they see the characters doing! 

The next three are also by Ekaterina Trukhan, and I think we can all agree her illustrations are adorable.  They remind me a lot of Christian Robinson's art. What I like about these ones is that they have a teaching focus: counting, shape recognition, and color recognition.  You can read these together and practice counting and identifying shapes and colors as you go.  These are great for continuing past babyhood!

The following two are both by Carolina Buzio (who, if you don't recognize right away, is also the illustrator of one of my favorites, Babies Can Sleep Anywhere).  I was so excited to see that she's joined the team of Indestructible author/illustrators and can't wait for her next two titles to release in April 2021.  

Big and Little teaches children opposites in a way that's familiar to them.   Babies adore hearing stories about and seeing pictures of other babies! This one is great for increasing vocabulary and for discussing feelings/character expressions.  

All Year Round is a book teaching littles about the different seasons -- what the weather's like and some activities that we do in each.  Another one that's great for building vocabulary (especially as it relates to temperature), but also for seeing and discussing differences.  I love that you can talk about the different types of clothing that's appropriate in each season as well.

Flutter! Fly! by Kaaren Pixton is a beautifully illustrated wordless book.  This variety is wonderful for teaching children visual discrimination.  Although all of the creatures are different, each one has wings and is seen flying.  Wordless books give a lot of opportunity for discussion (see my previous post for more on this).  Kids can make connections to creatures they've seen before while they've been outside, and you can talk about ones they haven't seen yet and where you might have to go to find those ones.  Books like this are great for getting kids familiar with taking the time to really LOOK at the pictures without feeling overwhelmed by the words.  

There are currently 38 available titles in the Indestructibles series (with 2 slated for release in April 2021).  Three of the titles are available in Spanish.  With so many to choose from, you're bound to find several you enjoy!

For more information on how Indestructibles can help your child learn and continue to grow with your child into toddlerhood, see http://indestructiblesinc.com/for-educators/ 

To view the complete collection, visit https://www.workman.com/brands/indestructibles !